Interview with Cara Hullings and Hailey Punis from the Digital Archive of Indigenous Language Persistence (DAILP)
Cara Hullings is the project coordinator for DAILP. Hailey Punis is an undergraduate English major with a minor in Writing and Art. They both work for the Digital Archive of Indigenous Language Persistence (DAILP).
Cara and Hailey spoke with Colleen Nugent McLean, CDS Coordinator, about their work with DAILP and how community care is central to its mission. Their comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Colleen: I think it would be good to start with the basics. Could you describe the main purpose of DAILP and the method for achieving that purpose in your own words?
Cara: DAILP stands for the Digital Archive of Indigenous Language Persistence, so our mission is to bolster language persistence for Indigenous languages. Right now, we have a public focus on the Cherokee language, but we are in the process of building a corresponding site for the Ojibwe language. We plan to scale out to other Indigenous languages accordingly.
The way we support that mission is by working with Indigenous language speakers to choose historical documents written in that respective language, then having those community members translate those documents, and lastly making that entire process accessible in one place on our website.
Hailey: Adding on to that, DAILP is very community centered. That means it is based on the community for the community. Each step is approved by the Indigenous community members. It is also very important for us to make sure that our content is accessible for everyone.
Could you both describe your roles? How long have you been working for DAILP?
Hailey: I am a web content developer and I started last March. I initially was working as a writer for stories on the main website, but now I do technical documentation. I also conduct some of the project management, especially onboarding material, planning, and establishing agendas for each week.
Cara: I am the project coordinator for DAILP and I have been here for about a month and a half now. I help with all the administrative tasks that go into running DAILP, which includes invoicing for our community partners, scheduling meetings, and budgeting. As part of our Phase 3 Grant, I am helping to prepare a data resilience plan with the help of our digital archivist here at Northeastern.
Hailey, I was wondering if you could speak more about how your role has shifted from the story writing that you started off doing.
Hailey: The stories I wrote initially focused on highlighting community members and DAILP’s achievements. The technical documentation I now write is more geared towards DAILP team members to give them an overview of the functions of the site and documentation for our GitHub presence.
Cara: Our presence on GitHub is part of our commitment to accessibility. Part of making things accessible is also making everything open source. Everything is available, including all the documentation that Hailey is putting time into, as well as the code itself, for those who want to do similar missions to what we are doing.
What is the process for acquiring these historical documents?
Hailey: I don’t work closely with the community members in the process of acquiring the collection, but I know that it is very collaborative.
Cara: I can’t speak as much to the acquisition of the current public Cherokee documents because that work occurred before I started, but I can speak to what we have been doing for the Ojibwe language. We work with Ojibwe language speakers, translators and passionate community members who identify the documents that would be good candidates.
One workflow we are using is that our student linguist, Jae Messersmith, will identify potential items through research in other library organizations, and then work directly with our community partners on those items. The community members then look through those materials and make the final decision on if they want those items included or not. Once the decision is made, we move forward with translation.
Could you say more about this community collaboration? This is a pretty broad question, so you can take it in whatever direction you feel you can speak to.
Hailey: I know there is a lot of collaboration with DAILP and tribal members, throughout each step of the process. We make sure that they have data sovereignty and we implement C.A.R.E. Principles to make sure everyone is on the same page about what knowledge should be published and what should be kept private.
Could you define data sovereignty, as you are using it, for me?
Cara: In our sense of the word, it relates directly to Indigenous data sovereignty. To put it another way, any data that is about Indigenous people, created by Indigenous people, or represents their culture belongs to that Indigenous group and they have the right to control how that data is used.
Hailey: We are starting to implement Traditional Knowledge (TK) labels onto the website.
Cara: Yes, the TK labels can be implemented on sites that have indigenous data that is not public to non-tribal members. These labels can then block the content from people who don’t fit into that identity. There are some items that are only meant to be seen by women, for example, and that is something we can implement with these TK labels. We want to acknowledge that we are holding this information, but it still belongs to the people it is meant for. When we are granting public access to content on a website, we need to have these safeguards in place so the data is controlled the way it would be controlled in any other Indigenous space.
And that seems like information you would not be easily able to acquire without these community collaborations.
Cara: Definitely. Another thing about the TK labels is that we are implementing them now, but we actually do not currently have any content that they would apply to. Within our community conversations, they have told us they are only currently giving information that they want to be accessible for the public. So that is where we are now with what we have on the website.
That is really interesting. I was wondering how the main website and the GitHub presence speak to each other?
Hailey: The website, DAILP, is the main product and GitHub is for anybody who wants to look further into how things are implemented. Our workflows are also public on GitHub. It is mostly for people who may want to have their own website and create their own collections, using our processes.
Cool, so it is almost like a tool kit for others. I wanted to ask, Hailey, how has working for DAILP affected your experience here at Northeastern?
Hailey: It has definitely shaped how I see archives. I have not worked in an archive before. I am an English major with a Writing minor, so it is interesting to have a more hands-on experience with how knowledge can be handled with care. I have also enjoyed learning more about the practices to preserve language and indigenous cultures.
Cara, how has your experience been coming into a fairly established project?
Cara: It is a lot to learn and it is very different from anything I have ever experienced. I come from a more corporate work environment and I have a MS in archive studies, but this is not the traditional archive they teach you about. I have had to reconsider my understanding of archives and that mostly comes down to us being so community driven. The expertise for this project is really spread throughout the entire team. As a staff member, to come in and see undergrads leading and taking charge with some of the most complex processes I’ve ever seen is amazing. They’re all brilliant.
What do you enjoy most about working for DAILP?
Hailey: I enjoy the work, in terms of how community based it is, the most. I think it is really important, as an undergraduate, to get the opportunity to collaborate with Indigenous communities. Being part of a team that has such an important responsibility, is very fulfilling.
Cara: I have to agree. The mission being so community driven and supporting the Indigenous community is what I enjoy most about being in this role. They are all such amazing partners and our students are amazing too. Everyone here has the same mentality, which is very nice. It is great to know that we can all be respectful because we all believe in that community focus.
Other than the data resilience plan, are there other goals for this academic year?
Cara: We are making a lot of updates to the software to get some new features built into the website. These updates will make the use of our translation interface easier, faster, and hopefully more intuitive to our community members. A lot of big updates to come to the platform itself this year!